Carlos is a Handsome Little Devil, A Short Ballpark Story

As you may have heard, everyone's favorite Panamanian catcher was honored with his own bobblehead last night. Foremost, I have to say that this is one of the cooler bobbleheads in my collection. Between him being down in a plate-blocking stance and the fact it comes with a removable mask, I'm in love with this thing. Certainly cooler than quasi-racist lawn gnomes or any typical mid-swing batting bobble.

Clearly I was not the only one who thought this. Everyone loves Carlos Ruiz. That was evidenced by A) THE LARGEST CROWD OF THE SEASON and B) the prison-like bartering from some the Citizen's Bank Park employees. While paying for my price-inflated cheesesteak, the Tony Luke’s girl handing out the trays of food quietly leaned in and asked each patron the same question. “Trade your bobblehead for a free steak?” At first I thought she was joking. After realizing she was completely serious, I was just caught off guard. She looked seriously upset when I declined. No one I went to the game with accepted the trade, nor did I see anyone else in line make the swap. That would basically be placing a value of $8.50 on your bobblehead. Not worth it in my opinion, but you can't blame the employees for trying to get some Chooch. I'm sure some extra hungry fatass took a whiff of the whiz and made the rash, heat-of-the-moment steakswap.

But as we tweeted last night, and was pointed out by TWW friend Eric, this may be the most handsome bobblehead of all time. I mean just look at those deep brown eyes, the chiseled features, and his stoic ceramic determination! It's like they modeled Ruiz after a young Antonio Banderas . TOO SEXY MY FRIEND!

Or maybe he just looks like a generic Italian guy. One or the other. Either way: great bobble, Carlos. No homo.